Early Settlers of Piney Point

Early Settlers of Piney Point. . , "Piney Point," named for a grove of tall pines at a southward bulge of Buffalo Bayou, was a landmark for early Texan colonists. The San Felipe Trail was initially a primitive path that followed the south bank of Buffalo Bayou. John D. Taylor arrived in Texas in 1822 and was granted a league of land here by empresario Stephen F. Austin in 1824. Taylor and his wife Maria built a log cabin near a spring, about 1000 feet east of this site. They lived there with a daughter and two servants, and were among the first settlers in the vast frontier area that lay between San Felipe and Galveston Bay. The Taylors were here for less than two years before they sold their land and moved to the new village of Harrisburg, where both John and Maria died of yellow fever in 1829., Taylor's Piney Point league of land passed through several hands before a part of it containing Taylor's homesite was purchased by Buckman Canfield, a veteran of the Texas War of Independence, in 1838. Canfield and his wife, Harriet Putnam, moved to Texas from Oswego, New York. They operated a frontier inn for travelers on the San Felipe Trail, as well as a farm and cattle ranch. After Buckman's death in 1844, Harriet married Benjamin George and built a millpond and a water powered sawmill below the spring. The millpond still exists, 1000 feet northeast of the intersection of Fondren Drive and Woodway., The San Felipe Trail was improved as a wagon road by Austin's colony in 1830. It became an important export route for the colony's cotton, and went from San Felipe to the port at Harrisburg and, after 1886, to the new town of Houston. The trail was located a quarter of a mile to the south of this site, near modern Westheimer Road.